If your kids are in school, you know all too well how germs spread in the classroom. Although my kids’ teachers do their best to sanitize the kids hands before eating, and to encourage coughing/sneezing in to elbows, it’s almost impossible to avoid getting sick at some point.
But there is another place that could be making your child sick, and it’s the very place we take them to safeguard their health. The doctor’s office. Every year I take my kids to their well child check up, I cringe a little when we have to share the same open space with a bunch of sick, coughing, snotty nosed kids. Some offices have seperate waiting rooms, some are just partitioned, and some share the same space (like ours).
If you have cringed too, you have good reason to. According to Today Moms, you child does have a greater risk of becoming sick after visiting the doctor’s office:
“Children and their families had a 3.2 percent increase in flu-like infections after a child 6 or under went to a well-child visit, according to the survey data. While that increase seems small, experts estimate it amounts to about 700,000 cases of preventable flu-like infections each year.”
Wow. That’s a lot. So how exactly can you help to prevent these germs from spreading? Here are some tips you may not be practicing while at the doctor’s.
- Bring and use anti-bacterial wipes to the waiting room. Wipe down the arms of your chairs. Also use them to cover door handles while walking through the building.
- Do not let your child touch or put their mouth on the front desk area
- Use your own pen to sign in
- Don’t let your child play with any toys or books left in the waiting area. Bring your own toys/board books that can be easily wiped down when you get home
- Sanitize your child’s hands after you leave the office
- Push vitamin C the day before, of, and after you visit the doctor’s
